


Hematophagic

by kyberking



Series: Hematophagia [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Blood Drinking, Feed or die, Gen, Ryan goes through all five stages of grief in under two minutes, Shane is a little shit about it, Vampire AU, platonic, vampire!Shane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-24 13:06:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13214379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyberking/pseuds/kyberking
Summary: Shane believes that none of those stupid magic carvings at the haunted places they visit ever work. That is, of course, until they absolutely do, putting him in a dangerous situation.What happens when he’s forced to tell Ryan the truth or face the consequences of his arrogance?(vampire!Shane au)





	Hematophagic

**Author's Note:**

> Happy new year! Enjoy my very self indulgent vampire au :)

There was an...accident on location. They’d been filming in some old house turned cult hideout, not too different from any of the other locations they’d been to; it was just another tiny ghost ridden shack covered with carvings and pentagrams and other graffiti. Shane, cocky as ever, had reached out and run his hand over one of the markings but instead of quipping, he yelled like he’d been burned, falling to his knees. Ryan screamed, that was, until Shane stood up, laughing again.

“What the fuck was that?” Ryan gasped

“A joke, little guy, ever heard of ‘em?” Shane’s voice was strained, but sincerely joking.

The story of course, changed once they were back in the hotel room.

-

Shane was pacing, clutching his stomach like a man wounded.

“Hey man, is something wrong, did ya eat some more airport hot dogs?” Ryan asked, sitting on his bed to toe off his shoes and collapse in exhaustion. Shooting had gone well after Shane’s little prank, which meant Ryan was spooked to the bone and desperate to sleep. But Shane’s insufferable pacing struck an anxiety deep in his body, warding off any semblance of rest. “Shane?” He asked again, wondering if the other man hadn’t heard him.

Shane didn’t really give an answer, he just shrugged and went into the bathroom. Ryan heard the shower squeak on, and he brushed off Shane’s prickly nonresponse as his own exhaustion. Without Shane on the prowl, Ryan was able to relax. He was actually almost asleep when he heard a loud crash.

Launching out of bed, Ryan fumbled his way into the bathroom to see Shane, dry and fully clothed, curled on the floor, groaning.

“Jeeesus Christ, Shane,” Ryan breathed out, helping the larger man to his feet after turning off the shower.

“I’m cursed, man. That thing in the wall was actually real for once. Ha! You and your _boogers_ get a point for curses,” Shane babbled as the pair made their way back into the bedroom. Dropping Shane onto the closest bed, Ryan asked him just what the fuck he was talking about. When he didn’t answer, Ryan rolled his eyes and left to get Shane a glass of water.

Shane drank it greedily, spilling some down his chin, he gripped the empty glass so hard that his knuckles were white, pushing against his skin like it was paper. Going over to the mini fridge, Ryan replenished the cup with Gatorade instead of water, hoping the electrolytes or whatever would help. Shane drank that quickly, too, swallowing it all with a grimace.

“Fuck, dude you look so gross.” Ryan winced watching Shane drink like a madman, staining the collar of his shirt blue as overflow spilled from the corners of his mouth.

“I look cursed, you mean.” Shane chuckled, tipping the glass towards Ryan. “Those fuckers never get it right, god, I can’t believe I fell for it.”

“ _What the fuck_ ,” Ryan muttered under his breath. “What did you fall for?” He asked, pretty incredulous and about 2 minutes from calling for help in dealing with Shane’s psychobabble. Much to his credit, he sobered up when he answered Ryan this time.

“That drawing on the wall was a draining curse, it just, like, rips the energy out of you. I only touched it a little bit and _holy shit_ I feel like I haven’t eaten in weeks,”

“I saw a McDonald’s down the road if you want a cheeseburger?” Ryan was only entertaining Shane while the “call for help” clock ticked away in his head. It had 1 minute and 22 seconds left.

“Not eating like that.” Shane muttered, pressing the glass to his forehead.

Not like “that”? What other kinds of eating were there? Ryan’s clock was quickly rushing to zero as Shane put aside the cup and hung his head in his hands. When Ryan moved to grab his cellphone Shane huffed like he made some kind of choice and reached out blindly to grab him, cold fingers grazing Ryan’s arm.

“Like,” Shane sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “like... _blood_. Blood-eating. Drinking. Whatever. Specifics aren’t all that important right now.”

That countdown clock in Ryan's head? Yeah, it just fell off the shelf and smashed on the floor. Drinking blood? Shane didn’t even believe in the supernatural! Ryan’s mind couldn’t wrap itself around the statement. Shane’s ensuing explanation didn’t help either. 

“I have a genetic condition that makes me, uh, mostly hematophagic, actually.” Shane offered, using his “look at my fancy logic” voice.

Hematophagic? Was Shane really using science terms to avoid saying vampire?

“So you’re telling me you’re a vampire?” Ryan said blankly, calling him on his shit.

“ _Hematophagic_.”

“How are you going to co-opt a scientific term while also claiming to suffer from a curse, Shane?”

That must have been checkmate for the larger man, who just sat silent, worrying the hem of his shirt. Ryan grabbed his phone and started stabbing at the screen, grumbling about calling TJ, or a priest.

“I can prove it!” Shane yelped, jumping up from the bed and nearly falling again. Once he righted himself, he looked at Ryan with a wonky smile, “Besides, kid, isn’t believing weird, improbable shit your whole brand?”

“You have 30 seconds, Madej.”

Shane’s smile melted into a toothy grin. Right before his eyes, he watched as honest to god _fangs_ slid out to cover Shane’s top canines, making Ryan damn near spook out of his skin. First it was curses, then blood drinking, and now fangs? Oh no. _No, no, no._

“So, w-what do you - _do you kill people?_ ” Ryan stutters, stumbling away instinctively until his back hits the wall, panic rising in his throat as he realized he was trapped.

“Oh, of course it’s straight to the murder! No, Ryan, I do not kill people, for God’s sake.” Shane wasn’t quite yelling, but the tone wasn’t light either, he sounded almost insulted. Ryan still just stood there with his fucking mouth agape like a fool, so Shane continued, “There’s like a network of blood banks and stuff. You ever donate blood?” Ryan nodded. “Well there’s medical grade stuff, and then stuff with like, low iron, or too few white blood cells or whatever, and they pass that stuff on to us. Y’know, win-win. They don’t waste anything and, uh, I don’t starve.” There was that nervous little laugh again.

By the end of his speech, Ryan had closed his mouth but his eyes had glossed over, his mind flying at a thousand miles a millisecond. He was so far away from his body trying to process the idea of blood-drinking-Shane that he didn’t hear him calling his name.

“Ryan?”

“Mm, yeah?” He slurred, looking up at Shane to see the fangs had thankfully been retracted.

“I asked that if I could find a bank here, would you get it? I, uh, don’t think I’m okay to drive.” Shane’s hands were shaking as he moved to sit on the bed again.

Ryan’s stomach twisted with the image of him driving with a cooler of blood baggies in the passenger seat. It seemed so fake, like a weirdly elaborate prank. Vampires just...weren’t real. Ghosts, yeah, those were just the collected energies of those who had passed on. Demons? Sure, they were preternatural beings created by God. But vampires were a myth! A thing made up by Bram Stoker to sell books! Something inside him snapped and the fear boiled away.

Ryan groaned and then laughed so deeply it shocked himself. God, what a stunt Shane had pulled! The other man had some kind of determination to keep up a gag from filming this long. Ryan walked over to the lamp, lifting the shade off to look for a camera. But he found nothing. He tore over to the desk, checking the gopros, but both were off. His eyes scanned the ceiling, but there weren’t any cameras there either. _Where the hell were they?_

“Ryan,”

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan snapped, carding a hand through his hair, “Joke’s over man, where are the fucking cameras?”

“Ryan, there are no cameras, it’s not a joke.”

“Oh come on, it’s - that’s not something you just admit, man. “What do you want for lunch, and oh by the way I’m a bloodthirsty monster.” Is that it?” Ryan’s voice was so loud it made blood rush in his ears, and he barely heard Shane whisper,

“I could die.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I was looking that sigil up in the bathroom and it, it just...took everything. And I need help, fast.” He was pleading. Ryan could feel his voice was so sincere, and he realized this wasn’t a game. This was really happening. This was real life coming at him real damn fast.

“You know, when I called us the ghoul boys, I didn’t imagine it held any truth. But yeah, I-I’ll help.” Ryan tried to smile, but damn if he didn’t feel like he’d aged 15 years and shifted into a newer, weirder plane of existence - one where being a “snack” meant more than just looking hot in those jeans.

A new silence fell over the room after Shane thanked him and then slipped into the bathroom to make his calls. Ryan slipped on his shoes, laying back down on the bed, fisting and unfisting the car keys, grounding himself with the familiar bite of the cold metal. A few minutes later the bathroom door opened and Ryan shot up, looking expectantly at Shane, who was noticeably paler.

“The nearest bank is, ah, _several_ hours away.” He stated, wringing his hands. Shakily, he walked over to where Ryan was sitting and sat down himself, shoulder to shoulder with him. “It’s six hours, both ways. Fucking useless.”

“Shane,” Ryan inhaled, pushing the air to his center, trying to balance himself enough to say what he was about to say. “I said I would help.”

“It’s too late. It’s too far.”

“I said I would help,” He repeated, voice firmer, slower, twisting to grab Shane by the shoulders so he could look him in the eyes and let the full meaning of those words sink in. Shane went through quite the face journey then, his features morphing from defeat, to confusion, and finally to horror.

“No, no way.” He quickly pulled away from Ryan’s grip.

“What the hell am I going to do with your corpse in the morning, Shane? What do I tell the cops? “Yeah, my friend, who was perfectly healthy at 6pm just turned into a starved out husk before dawn?” His eyes were burning into Shane’s, begging to let him help. The solution to the problem seemed simple and well, he was too pretty for prison.

“And what will I do with your bloodied corpse? Look at the cops and the crew and say, “fuck it if I got hungry last night?” Do they still burn people at the stake? Because I’m pretty sure I’d be the bonfire at the company’s Fourth of July party.”

“Hey! The murder morality card isn’t fair, you once said you’d happily shoot me in the head! And it’s not like you have to behead me for this, right?” Shane shook his head. “Then it’s settled.”

“No the fuck it isn’t!” Shane tried to yell, but his voice cracked, as did Ryan’s heart. Ironically, they were practically at each other’s throats now; with Ryan trying his best not to wake up next to corpse, and Shane apparently trying to become one.

“Let me help you, asshole.” It was an endearing insult, really. Shane’s sunken eyes blinked slowly and his tongue darted out to wet his lips.

“Fine,” he whispered “just don’t haunt me if you die.”

-

Two minutes later, the ghoul boys were rearranged on the bed. There’d been more arguing about how this was going to happen, but it was happening, which was good, considering how weak Shane seemed to be getting. 

“Should this, I dunno, feel so...intimate?” Ryan asked, swallowing thickly as Shane hovered behind him on the bed.

“D-do you think you’re gonna cream your jeans when I bite you?” Shane wheezed, resting his chin on Ryan’s shoulder, his skin ice cold and sweaty.

Ryan’s face went red hot in comparison. _No!_ No, he did not, thank you very much and Fuck You for asking. It was just...weird. His friend and coworker was about to go straight Dracula on his ass; and since the only Dracula movie he’d seen was the Keanu Reeves one, yeah, Ryan had questions. The most pressing one of which was: _Why on earth did he agree to do this again?_ Oh yeah, Shane was dying. No big deal.

“Platonic intimate, dumbass,” he responded, dutifully unbuttoning his shirt to pull it away from his chest. He had no idea what the spatter factor would be, so he was taking all precautions, his Jordans were already hidden away in the closet. They were custom after all. If he died tonight, he wanted to be buried in them.

“What the fuck is _platonic intimate_? It sounds like two philosophers gettin’ nasty.” Shane laughed weakly, breath puffing on Ryan’s ear. “Oh Plato, oh Socrates, woo me with your treatises on death and morality.

 _Oh my god_. Now was not the time for banter. But at least the air had cleared enough for banter to be possible...banter that wasn’t about their respective corpses.

“Do you want a countdown? A shot of the vodka I keep in my carry-on?”

“Just do it, Shane,” Ryan rolled his eyes and braced himself.

And that was it, Shane’s fangs cut into his skin and he felt blood rush out of his body. They cut in with an almost surgical precision, bringing almost no pain, and if Ryan tried hard enough, it could almost be like getting a blood panel done at the doctor. The symptoms were the same, there was a dull throbbing where he’d been cut, his mouth went dry and his head felt like it was full of cotton yet too heavy to hold upright at the same time. He had this terrible urge to squirm away, his panic growing by the moment and coming to the surface as a tiny gasp and screwed shut eyes. The only difference between this and a medical procedure was the fact that his blood wasn’t going into vials to be sent off to some lab, but rather it was going into his friends mouth vis-a-vis his throat.  
  
If he was going to be honest, he felt a little cheated. After reading so many books and... _fanfictions_ …Ryan had expected some kind of venomous reaction, be it excruciating pain or an opioid-like pleasure. But it just felt realistic, like blood loss and getting a hickey. The only noticeable thing about the encounter - other than the entire thing in general - was that Ryan had to focus on staying conscious or else he just knew that Shane would freak.

The physical fangs had only been there for a fraction of a second, just long enough to open him up. Shane lapped at the wound, pressing insistently against Ryan’s throat with cold lips and tongue. Whatever blood escaped Shane’s mouth spilled down Ryan’s neck and chest and could be felt dripping between his pectorals morbidly. Shane drank from him somewhat greedily, like earlier with the water, but this was different, nourishing. He could feel Shane humming against his skin and warming to the touch as he took more and more from his veins. Ryan had to remind himself to be brave and breathe, clearing his mind of every thought but a steady mantra of: _inhale_ ,  _exhale_.

Shane pulled away after what felt like a century, gently placing Ryan down on the bed before he collapsed himself. Breathing heavily, Ryan reached out to squeeze Shane’s hand, turning his head to search for his friend’s eyes. Shane shamefully hid them away, but Ryan heard him apologize before the powerful cocktail of blood loss and exhaustion pulled him under.

When he awoke just after dawn the next morning, Ryan was shirtless and caked in dry blood, and thankfully, next to the very alive and healthy-looking form of Shane Madej, his friend the vampire.

**Author's Note:**

> Personally, my favorite part of this fic is Shane calling his condition hematophagia instead of vampirism bc of course he would, it sounds way more scientific/realistic and far less removed from Twilight fuckery 
> 
> (ps: @Ryan: it’s your turn next) 
> 
> Pls comment it gives me life


End file.
